


Laws of Power

by mneiai



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Harry Potter is a Horcrux, Interconnected Drabbles, Manipulative Harry, Ships TBD - Freeform, Smart Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 01:12:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6263632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mneiai/pseuds/mneiai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are no principles; there are only events. There is no good and bad, there are only circumstances. -Honore de Balzac</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have an MA in Conflict Resolution and in one of my courses for it the professor had us read The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. He found it positively vile, but I've always found it wonderfully horrible. Sometimes, while reading Slytherin-focused HP fics, I'm reminded of one or more of the Laws, and that's always made me want to write something like this. This fic will probably be 48 chapters long and jump around quite a bit, more like a series of interconnected drabbles than anything else.
> 
> Predictably, I do not own or claim in any way The 48 Laws of Power OR Harry Potter. I am using them strictly for some fun with no monetary compensation. 
> 
> Also, for anyone here because of it, I am totally working on the second chapter of Apex Predators, I just didn't expect such a response to it and so have ditched my initial plans for it to try to make it something more drawn out.
> 
> Per usual, this is unbeta'd, because I'm the only one of my friends still obsessed enough with Harry Potter to do something like this haha

Law 32: PLAY TO PEOPLE'S FANTASIES

_The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes from disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses._

When Harry is nine, his Uncle Vernon got a new boss at Grunnings. The man valued education in a way that the Dursleys didn't, but Vernon pretended to care, of course, and bought every single book the man ever recommended. Most of them sat unread on the shelves and no one ever noticed when Harry took one into his cupboard.

Out of all of them, it was The 48 Laws of Power that stuck with him. Even when he had to dig through his battered little dictionary (left in a trashcan outside the school when the librarians became too tired of mending it), he still found that there was something inherent in them that he understood. That they called to some part of him, creating a shifting in his mind that at first was unsettling, but soon became a comfort in its near-constant presence. 

He hadn't taken the book out of his cupboard for two years, not until he was packing it away in his school trunk, preparing to go to Hogwarts. It was the knowledge that it was there, waiting for him, that steadied his hands as he sat on the stool and the Sorting Hat descended onto his head. It was the mental recitation of the Laws that he focused on until a voice jarred him from his thoughts.

"You could be great, in Slytherin," the Hat insisted, reminding him of Ollivander in the wand shop, of the steady, intrigued look of some of the adults in Diagon Alley and Platform ¾. 

"I'll be great anywhere," he insisted. "But most of all, in Gryffindor."

Because it wasn't hard to see that's where people expected him to go. He couldn't go to Slytherin, that would be worse than doing accidental magic around the Dursleys--instant suspicion and distrust, probably mixed in with some verbal abuse. He was smart, but he didn't want people to think he was too smart, so Ravenclaw was out. And he hadn't met a single person with a good opinion of Hufflepuff, yet.

"It has to be Gryffindor."

"You're certainly brave enough for Godric's house," the Hat agreed, but still seemed hesitant.

"Gryffindor," Harry insisted, putting his will behind it, knowing that now there was magic backing that up.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the Hat shouted, shaking slightly as if it had tried to stop him. 

Harry grinned as cheering erupted from the crowd. There was no relief on anyone's face, because no one had ever believed he could be anything but Gryffindor.

He was going to control that House by the end of the year.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Law 6: COURT ATTENTION AT ALL COST

Here was the thing: Of course Harry had submitted his name to the Goblet of Fire. It was just that no one had to know that. No one with half a brain would even consider it--he was fourteen years old and Dumbledore had placed an Age Line around the Goblet. Except the thing in his head, the thing wrapped tight around his soul, was way older than fourteen. But no one else needed to know that, either.

So when Harry was led, pale and shaking, back to where the other Champions were waiting, the very first thing he said in his defense was, "It's Voldemort, isn't it? He's trying to get me killed. Make it into some sort of-of spectacle." 

Dumbledore was watching with a solemn expression, Snape and the Highmaster from Durmstrang had both flinched at the Dark Lord's name, and the Headmistress from Beauxbatons was suddenly speechless. The other students had wide eyes, Cedric's filled with dawning realization.

"Bloody hell, Potter, you must be right."

"We shouldn't go jumping to conclusions," a nervous Crouch stated, probably not liking how this tied into the World Cup, and his house-elf, and the Dark Mark. It was his own fault, Harry had thought then and thought now, for being such a prick to that creature.

"Why not? First year our DADA professor was possessed, second year someone opened the Chamber of Secrets, third year Dementors tried to eat me--this is just another year as Harry bloody Potter, the boy who lived to have rotten luck."

Within five minutes, everyone seemed to agree, to varying degrees, that this had probably been a play to hurt him somehow. When the Champions were released, Crouch gave a stilted speech saying Harry had to participate because of the contract, but that it was believed to be sabotage on the part of someone else, and security around the school would increase to protect all of the students. A load of rubbish, Harry knew, especially after the last year, but he was fine with that. His whole House was patting him on the back, offering him assistance and training, as if they hadn't doubted him for a second.

When he looked around the Great Hall, only two other people seemed to be suppressing mirth as he was--Zabini at the Slytherin table, who had even taken to ironically clapping when Harry's name was announced during the speech, and Moody, who...could have been proud at Harry's paranoia, but he didn't think it was that. 

He couldn't go a single school year without some sort of mystery, but this time he thought he might draw it out, just for fun.


End file.
